Previously, a subscriber of audio/video data, such as television programs transmitted by way of satellite or cable television broadcast systems, was limited to a few physical locations at which the subscriber could view the data. More specifically, a subscriber was required to be co-located with a satellite or cable set-top box directly connected to a satellite antenna or coaxial cable to view their favorite programs, including those the subscriber recorded by way of a digital video recorder (DVR) connected to, or integrated with, the set-top box.
However, such physical restrictions have been eliminated with the development of network-attachable audio/video devices, such as the Slingbox™ by Sling Media, Inc, which are capable of transferring audio/video data from a number of sources, such as satellite and cable set-top boxes, digital video disc (DVD) players, and coaxial cable connections, over a network to a remotely-located display device. As a result, a subscriber away from home may now access his set-top box or other audio/video source by way of a desktop or laptop computer, mobile phone, personal digital assistant (PDA), or other similarly-configured communication device, by connecting to the audio/video device or node over the Internet to view a variety of audio/video programming of interest.
Typically, the communication device connects to the audio/video node over the network by way of an easily-remembered Internet domain name. To this end, the communication device normally places a request over the network to a Domain Name System (DNS) server, which responds to the domain name with an IP (Internet Protocol) address. The communication device then employs the IP address to communicate with, and receive audio/video data from, the audio/video node. Such a process is often necessitated by an Internet service provider (ISP) dynamically assigning IP addresses to the audio/video node and other network nodes within its purview. In one example, dynamic assignment of IP addresses allows a particular IP address to be assigned to any of a number of nodes, thus allowing the use of fewer IP addresses compared to the number of nodes being serviced, assuming fewer than all of the nodes are connected to the network at any one time.